Emergent Research

EMERGENT RESEARCH is focused on better understanding the small business sector of the US and global economy.

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The authors are Steve King and Carolyn Ockels. Steve and Carolyn are partners at Emergent Research and Senior Fellows at the Society for New Communications Research. Carolyn is leading the coworking study and Steve is a member of the project team.

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Emergent Research works with corporate, government and non-profit clients. When we reference organizations that have provided us funding in the last year we will note it.
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... in preliminary interviews with “gig economy” workers, Katz said he and Krueger have confirmed that a majority of those who have regular, non-“gig” employment don’t answer that they have “multiple jobs” when asked the standard multiple-jobs question, “even in many cases where they have significant on-line and other non-traditional job income.”

“They do answer about their share, gig, and freelance economy activities when specifically asked about other specific ways they made income,” Katz said. “But many of them do not seem to consider such activities as ‘regular jobs.'”

Katz is working with Princeton economist and former Chairman of President Barack Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers, Alan Kruger, on a study of the gig economy.

Regular readers know the gig economy industry has been aware of the problems with asking about "2nd jobs" for several years.

For example, we changed our surveys to ask about "other sources of income" instead of "other jobs" about 3 years ago. We did that based on our interviews with independent workers. This led to about a 4X increase in the number of survey respondents reporting multiple sources of income.

The Fusion article also says Kruger and Katz point to tax and non-employer business data as additional evidence the gig economy is growing.

Again, this is something the gig economy industry has been pointing to for years. We first wrote about this almost a decade ago (and we were by no means the first) and some of our first blog posts --way back in 2007 -- are on these topics.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not criticizing academic research or these highly respected economists.

Academic research in the economics and business fields often confirms or disproves hypotheses established by people working in the field. This is done by thorough data collection and rigorous analysis, both of which require a lot of time - often years in the case of the data.

The reason I consider this a major shift in thinking is that these are, at least as far as I know, the first well known academics to acknowledge the number of Americans with 2nd jobs is much larger than government statistics report.

Assuming Katz and Kruger's study confirms this, their findings will lead to others in academia, government and think tanks acknowledging that the gig economy is large and growing.

July 27, 2015

The report is based on a survey of 4000 Etsy sellers. The key findings include:

The vast majority of Etsy sellers, 86%, are women. This is much higher share of women ownership than either employer businesses (about 33% women owned) or independent workers (about 50% are women). According to the report the sellers also skew young with many below the age of 35.

Most Etsy shops are real businesses. Most sellers (76%) call their Etsy shop a business and 9 out of 10 say they are planning on increasing their sales. While only 30% report it's their full-time job, almost all consider their Etsy earnings to be an important source of income.

Key quote from the report:

For 30% of Etsy sellers, their creative business—both on and off Etsy—is their sole occupation. For the rest, their creative business supplements other jobs, contributing an average of 15% to total household income overall. This money makes a difference—44% use this income for necessary household expenses.

Etsy is a great example of how the Internet and online marketplaces are making it easier to create new businesses. It's also allowing people to pursue their creative passions while providing income.

This report also comes at a good time.

With Uber and the on-demand economy getting so much attention, it's important to remember that the on-demand economy is a small segment of the overall independent worker sector.

The Etsy report nicely reminds us that independent work and micro businesses continue to thrive and expand outside of the on-demand economy.

July 23, 2015

One of the biggest shifts going on in economics is the growing use of digital data for research.

The Internet and cloud computing platforms are generating large amounts of digital data on pretty much all areas of business and economics.

In fact, the amount data is growing much faster than our ability to analyze and use it.

In our work we've seen a clear shift to using digital data and away from our traditional sources - surveys and government produced data.

Yes, we still use traditional data sources more than digital data. But we think in a few years our use of digital data will dwarf our use of surveys and government data.

A good example of this shift comes from LinkedIn. They recently held an "Economic Graph Challenge" where researchers submitted research proposals that would use LinkedIn's vast array of data to study various economic issues.

They selected 11 winning teams and each will get access to LinkedIn data and a $25,000 research grant. The research teams - mostly academics - will crunch LinkedIn data in hopes of drawing some new insights on the global economy and job markets.

The shift to digital data for economic research is very exciting. We have several projects underway on the on-demand economy that are tapping into online digital data. We'll have more to say on this topic in the coming months.

LinkedIn's presentation below provides more information on the winning proposals.

The on-demand economy is getting an enormous about of attention these days. But the numbers clearly show traditional freelancers and independent workers vastly outnumber the people working in the on-demand economy.

So while the on-demand economy is certainly important (and growing rapidly), don't forget about the rest of the independent worker sector.

July 20, 2015

In a nutshell, a slice of Generation Y, borne of suburban comfort, indoctrinated with the transcendent power of education, and infected by the conviction that not only do we deserve to pursue our dreams; we should profit from them.

The article goes on to say that while wealth and money are not the ultimate Yuccie objectives, they do want to get paid. Key quote on this:

Yuccies, by my definition, are determined to define themselves not by wealth (or the rejection of it), but by the relationship between wealth and their own creativity. In other words, they want to get paid for their own ideas, rather than executing on someone else’s.

My favorite quote sums up who Yuccies are:

Yuccies are the cultural offspring of yuppies and hipsters.We’re intent on being successful like yuppies and creative like hipsters.

The article, which seems to be the first time this term has shown up the media, started a bit of a crescendo of responses. My favorites are:

Yuccies seek jobs where they can both earn a decent living and be fulfilled by their tasks. Read: creative jobs that stimulate their minds and their senses and their passion — but also pay the bills with a little left over for a weekend getaway that will surely be Instagrammed.

Maybe you've heard the term "slashie" a creative person whose day job isn't her real job. Like a writer/barista, or a painter/social media manager. A "slashie" actually has three jobs: pay the bills, keep the juices flowing with play and pursue a professional experiment that furthers a creative path regardless of financial gain -- how she hopes to someday earn a living.

If I understand this article correctly, Slashies become Yuccies when they're able to leave or at least cut back on their day job so they can focus more on their creative pursuits.

While I agree Yuccies exist, our work indicates this group is hardly limited to the Millennial generation. Pretty much everyone wants a job "where they can both earn a decent living and be fulfilled by their tasks."

This desire is one of the main drivers of the growth of independent workers.

“It’s a reflection of what’s happening in the traditional workforce,” Zaino says. “There’s segment of our workforce that is in high demand ... As these people realize they’re in high demand – if they see their consulting firm billing them out at four times what they are being paid – they become even more entrepreneurial because they see opportunity. More of the high-talent people are realizing they are able to go off on their own and make more money and they’re doing it.”

With Uber, Lyft and other 1099 economy companies getting so much attention these days, the focus of the media is on independent workers that have relatively low earnings.

This data shows there's also a substantial number independent workers who are highly skilled and well compensated. In fact, there are many more independent workers making more than $100k (about 2.9 million) than currently working full-time in the on-demand economy (less than 700,000).

The chart below shows the growth of this talented and well compensated group of independent workers.

July 09, 2015

Over the last year or so we've been digging deeper into why independent workers are consistently more happy at work than traditional employees.

Last fall in our article Why the Self-Employed Flourish we pointed out the key reasons independent workers tend to be happy and satisfied with their work:

Most independent workers have ... work that matches their strengths and interests and a job that gives them a sense of purpose ... They also tend to a have higher degrees of work control, autonomy and flexibility than traditional employees have.

Two recent studies reinforce our view that independent workers, on average, are happier than traditional employees.

July 07, 2015

A study recently issued by eBay reports that in the last year 190,000 U.S. small businesses that use their platform export to multiple countries and continents. This is up from about 30,000 in 2009.

Even more are exporters (meaning they sell their goods or services to at least 1 country outside of the U.S.). Key quote from the study:

Data from eBay demonstrates that 95% of the US SMBs on our platform [those selling $10,000 or more] engage in exporting. This is not a niche phenomenon as over 190,000 of these tech-enabled SMBs reach customers on more than 4 continents ...